'Myth Of Occupation Has Been Exploited Since 1967'

- Gerald M. Steinberg - 31st May 2007

While Israel celebrates 40 years of a reunited Jerusalem and what many
still see as a miraculous victory that reversed Nasser's threat to "push
the Jews into the sea", the Palestinians are celebrating 40 years of
"occupation" slogans.

This rhetoric has provided them with a political victory that has significantly
offset the defeat of the Arab armies on the battlefield. And by erasing
everything that came before the 1967 war, including the years of warfare,
terror following the violent Arab rejection of the 1947 UN partition resolution,
Israel's enemies have managed to rewrite history.

This "victory" on the battlefront of narratives and public relations
that fuels the various boycott campaigns that are being conducted, particularly
by British trade unions. The obsessive anti-Israel and often anti-semitic
leaders of this movement would have no doubt found other reasons to wave
war against Israel, even if there were no occupation. But the distorted
images of myths have also convinced uninformed journalists, academics, diplomats,
etc. that Israel is to blame. And this is where the real damage is done.

The myth that the "occupation" is the cause of the conflict,
rather than a symptom and consequence, is also spread by powerful political
organizations that exploit the rhetoric of humanitarian assistance and human
rights. As documented by NGO Monitor, the radicals that control Christian
Aid, War on Want, Human Rights Watch, etc., have worked closely with their
Palestinian counterparts to promote the false claim that the "occupation"
is the cause of the conflict, rather than a symptom.

Just last week, Amnesty International issued its annual report covering
2006, in which the biased and often false claims regarding Israel were repeated.
Despite the rocket attacks from Gaza, the continuing terror, and the warfare
between Hamas and Fatah, Palestinians are patronizingly portrayed as victims
of Israel.

Furthermore, this political warfare is often justified through use of a
small group of Israeli who also promote the myth that "if only we were
better to the Palestinians, and ended the occupation, we would have peace".
Funded generously by European taxpayers and churches, various political
and quasi-academic non-governmental groups are sponsoring one-sided conferences
and symposia on these topics.

But for the vast majority of Israeli, the era of simplistic slogans and
wishful thinking ended with the catastrophic collapse to the "Oslo
peace process", and the terror campaign in which over 1000 people were
murdered. Until the Palestinians and the world accept Israel as a Jewish
state, with the "secure and recognized borders" pledged in UN
Resolution 242 that followed the 1967 war, the options are limited.

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